<p>Traditionally, governments are the main providers of development assistance and re-sponsible for stimulating social development in the third world. In recent years, Corpo-rate Social Responsibility has gained considerable ground and it is now common for corporations to get involved in activities resembling those carried out in the name of development assistance. A deconstruction of these two activities shows that they could be described as two definitions of the same concept. Through a set of research ques-tions, this thesis explores the relationship between CSR and development assistance and seeks to identify possibilities for future cooperation between them.</p><p>The purpose of the thesis is to investigate (1) if there is a future possibility for a com-mon strategy where CSR and Development Assistance collaborate; (2) if developing countries would benefit from corporate involvement in development assistance; and (3) who else could benefit from such a strategy.</p><p>The main conclusion is that there are substantial possibilities for future co-operation be-tween them. It seems clear from the research that neither governmental development as-sistance organizations nor corporations stand a chance to eradicate poverty alone. It is, however, crucial that poverty eradication has to be the common goal for all actors in-volved. For cooperation to succeed the public must realize that a collaborative strategy is a way of including more actors in pursuing the goal of poverty eradication and not a way of trasferring money from development assistance to corporations.</p><p>Further, distribution of responsibility becomes useless if legal or official guidelines are unable to decide who has the ultimate responsibility. It is importance that responsibility is also followed by accountability.</p><p>Corporations would benefit by gaining access to emerging markets and the possibilities for innovative business strategies. Development assistance agencies would by introduc-ing new strategies improve the results and get more resources to achieve effective po-verty reduction. If corporations and development assistance agencies collaborate and focus on long-term projects real effectiveness will be the result. The general opinion seems to be that with a clearly set goal, several coordinated actors have a better chance of achieving it than one.</p><p><em> </em></p>
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:hj-12662 |
Date | January 2010 |
Creators | Bengtsson, Sophia, Hansson, Kajsa |
Publisher | Jönköping University, JIBS, Political Science, Jönköping University, JIBS, Political Science |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, text |
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